Talk about vamping it up – the stylish and sexy undead are hogging the culture spotlight

The undead sure are lively. Everywhere you look in entertainment these days you see vampires.

First there were the books, three different series of neck-biter novels, bestsellers all. The Vampire Diaries , the young-adult series by L.J. Smith (five have been published, with two more on the way), centre on a teenage girl named Elena who falls for a hot bloodsucker named Stefan.

The Sookie Stackhouse series (also known as the Southern Vampire series), written by Charlaine Harris, features Sookie, a cocktail waitress in steamy Bon Temps, La., and Bill Compton, the courtly, 173-year-old vampire who alternately protects and ravishes her. (On the July 10 New York Times paperback mass-market fiction list, Harris's books held seven of the top 25 spots.)

And Stephenie Meyer's monstrously successful Twilight series details the chaste but super-deep love between the mortal Bella and the vampire Edward, high-schoolers in drizzly Forks, Wash. Two graphic novels based on Twilight are due soon from Yen Press, drawn by Korean artist Young Kim and closely vetted by Meyer. And yet another trilogy of vampire novels, this one from the film director Guillermo del Toro, begins with The Strain , about Manhattan vampires run amok.

Then there are the TV shows. Starting Sept. 10, The Vampire Diaries will become a CW series, produced by Kevin Williamson ( Dawson's Creek ) and starring Nina Dobrev as Elena and Paul Wesley as Stefan. Over on HBO, True Blood , the kudzu-shrouded, plasma-soaked, 18A-rated series adapted from Harris's novels by Alan Ball (who also created Six Feet Under and wrote American Beauty ), is currently number one. With Oscar winner Anna Paquin as Sookie and her real-life fella Stephen Moyer as Bill, the show, now in its second season, lures 3.7-million viewers every Sunday night at 9; with repeat airings and downloads, the viewership jumps to more than 10 million. The ratings have risen 85 per cent since the series premiered last September, and more than a million season-one DVDs have been sold since their May release (Amazon is already taking pre-orders for season two).

This week’s Entertainment Weekly delivers the ultimate guide to vampires. You’ll find interviews with the authors behind Twilight and True Blood, our list of the 20 greatest bloodsuckers ever, and Anne Rice’s pick for the best new vampire — as well as a talk with her about how she revolutionized the vampire legend decades ago with Interview with a Vampire.

With Twilight a phenomenon, True Blood attracting converts by the millions, and hordes of new vampire projects looming in the shadows, bloodsuckers are haunting every corner of our lives: bookstores, television, movies, and more. Why has pop culture thrown open its door and invited them in? “The traditional vampire story, with monsters and victims, chases and chills, is more plain fun,” says True Blood’s executive producer Alan Ball. “But they can often reveal the general state of the cultural psyche.”

Vampires are such versatile symbols now that they can express both conservative and liberal views. Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight novels are steeped in her Mormon values. But True Blood speaks in part for gays and, as Ball puts it, “eight years of institutionalized demonization of pretty much any group that wasn’t on the bus with Mr. Bush.”

It may come as a surprise to learn that Meyer – reigning queen of pop culture’s vampire coven – has an uneasy relationship with them. Back in 2003, when she was writing the first draft of Twilight, she refused to show it to her husband. “I was embarrassed,” she said. “It was about vampires.” In fact, last year, she told EW that her great wish was to reclaim some time to write something new. “Look, I’m not just a vampire girl,” she said emphatically. “I can do other worlds.”

Charlaine is teaching ( speaking at ) a writing convention in Gainsville FL

Dinner with Charlaine

Rhys very late on Wendesday evening--I've been traveling all day to the Anhinga Writer's Conference in Gainesville, FL and just come back from dinner with the rest of the faculty, including my old friend and fabulous lady Charlaine Harris. Charlaine, for those of you who have lived under a stone for the past couple of years, is the creator of the Sookie Stackhouse vampire mystery series that is now the hit HBO TV series True Blood.

Carola Dunn writes :

Charlaine is our beacon of hope for all in the mystery world. She was a midlist mystery writer for years, writing two well-appreciated but not earth-shattering series, then she took a huge risk and wrote something that defied categorizing--a funny, sexy, Southern vampire mystery series. Most publishers didn't want to touch it. After all the mantra these days is "where does it go on the shelf?" but one publisher took the risk and the series came out to little fanfare. Then the fans found out about it and gradually by word of mouth it built up a reputation. Then HBO came to her and the rest, as they say, is history. At one time earlier this year she had six books in the top ten on the NYT list.

And the interesting thing is that the whole mystery community is delighted for her. We are always a supportive bunch, not seeing each other as rivals but as fellow pilgrims, and seeing all these good things happen for Charlaine remind us that they can happen to any of us one day.